) is the capital of the department of Doubs and the former capital of Franche-Comté, a region in eastern France close to the border with Switzerland, which has since been merged with the neighbouring region of Burgundy to become Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, the capital of which is Dijon. Once proclaimed the first green city of France, it has been labeled a "Town of Art and History" since 1986.

The city is first recorded in 58 BC as Vesontio in the Book I of Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico. The most common explanation is that the name is of Celtic origin, derived from wes, meaning 'mountain'.